Television is fast approaching disarray. Before the writer’s strike, students sat comfortably in dorm rooms and lounges across campus loyally following their favorite television shows. Now many sit, eyes scrunched and fingers crossed, hoping that Grey’s Anatomy got in as many scripts as they could before the strike. They cry alone at night without The Word from The Colbert Report.

The bedlam is over contract negotiations between Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The focus is new media content. Writers of the evolving webisodes would like to get paid when their material is watched.

“What we must have is a contract that gives us the ability to keep up with the financial success of this ever-expanding global industry,” Patric M. Verrone, president of WGA, said to Time magazine.

Picketers from Hollywood to New York lined up to protest, BlackBerrys and water bottles close at hand.

“Who’s got the Power?” was hollered through a bullhorn in Los Angeles.

“No money? No downloads. No downloads? No peace,” was chanted in Rockefeller Center, New York.

Picketers included Tina Fey, the creator of NBC’s 30 Rock and Steven Peterman, an executive producer of Hannah Montana. A handful of shows like Two and a Half Men, and The View have also felt the wrath of this strike.

What does this mean for the weekly gatherings that take place across campus, as viewers anticipate each week’s cliff-hanger? Re-runs and reality television seem the only consolation.

The last industry-wide strike, in 1988, left thousands of people out of work, and some estimates claimed strike-related losses as high as $500 million.

J. Nicholas Counter, president of the Producer’s Alliance, said to the New York Times, “We were on strike for five months in 1988. The issues this time are more difficult and more complex.”

Now, media is in much more competition regarding viewer’s attention with the advancement of the Internet, and invention of MP3 players, and DVD’s. Face it, there are better things to do.

Viewers can expect more foreign programming from international writers not covered by the WGA, or they can expect to be bombarded with more tasteless material until an agreement in made. If worst comes to worst the remote just might get substituted for a good, old-fashioned book.